


Snow and Seclusion

by AsterHowl



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-24 13:49:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13215066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AsterHowl/pseuds/AsterHowl
Summary: Willow is trapped and Fred is doing her best to free her.





	Snow and Seclusion

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for sunalsolove for the Buffy Femslash Secret Santa on tumblr. This is in response to the prompt about Fred and Willow "meeting up in a colder climate (for whatever MacGuffin reason), snow, maybe a diner, I'm thinking something sad, another missed opportunity (or mostly missed if you want to toss in some smootchies)".
> 
> I managed to hit a few of those notes. Hope it sounds okay.

Through the dark and the trees and the falling snow Fred saw a light. It was small and swooped about, not dissimilar to the way a suave drunk might stagger from the bar to the street. It seemed interested in her. She followed it. 

“Hope y’all know where you’re goin,” she said. She didn’t expect an answer, but she felt she needed to assure the trees that she knew she was crazy for following a strange light through the woods, lest they mistake her for an oblivious fool.

It was peaceful, in spite of the freezing cold. Fred entertained the idea that the little light had something to do with it, but she was already giving it far too much credit for having a sense of direction in the first place. 

“Still here.” The little light had stopped, Fred thought, perhaps due to exhaustion and high altitude, to see if she was still following it. Satisfied, it bounced twice, and then swooped between the thick, snow ladened branches. Fred pushed her way after it.

She was slowing, and it seemed to be getting impatient with her. “Sure, this is easy for you. You don’t have tired, aching legs and burning lungs.” She frowned as she felt her body tilt. She paused to catch her breath, and immediately spent it to say, “In fact, I’m fairly certain you don’t have any legs or lungs to begin with.”

She began to trudge. “Not that I can see anyway. I mean, when I look directly at you it’s kind of blinding. Not that I don’t appreciate the way you illuminate my immediate surroundings.” As these words and more puffed from her mouth her brain was desperately screaming at her to conserve oxygen and energy. 

“I’m sorry for blabbering. I’m just frightened. Frightened I’ll die out here in these woods...Freeze to death or get...torn apart by wolves. Are there wolves out here? You won’t lead me into a pack of wolves will you little light?” She swayed. Her arm reached out and found support against a tree. She laughed. “You couldn’t...carry me the rest of the way could you?”

The little light bobbed gently in the air. Fred sighed. Her heavy eyes drifted shut. “No. I know. You’re doing what you can. An’ I appreciate it, I do.” Fred steadied herself and forced her eyes open. The curious ball of light performed a manoeuvre Fred interpreted as concern . “Okay. I can do this. Lead the way.”

They pressed on through the snow. Fred wasn’t sure of the distance they covered. Everything in and on her body was burning. The little light flew spirals around her head whenever she needed to rest. The light was right, of course. She couldn’t afford to stop. 

The falling snow appeared like static across an old analogue television against the illumination of her glowing guide. They had breached the trees, but Fred could still not tell where they were heading. The blanket of snow at her feet glittered under the light, but the world around her was cold and dark. It seemed a peaceful place to die. 

The crunch of her footsteps became a clomp, and she gradually registered a face in front of her. She wanted to say hello. All she could do was breathe. Someone was holding her, keeping her from falling. She wanted to say thank you.

She didn’t know how she was doing it but she was moving again. She supposed her legs were responsible but only partly. There was a voice in her ear, pleasant, gentle, kind. She felt herself drop, but her landing was soft. She wanted to giggle. Someone was smiling at her. Telling her to relax, it was all going to be fine. 

Almost immediately Fred could feel her body again. It ached in every way. A sustained whimper gurgled from her searing throat.  
“Easy.” The gentle voice came from somewhere beside her, but everything hurt too much to be sure. “Give it time. I promise you’ll feel better soon.”  
Fred believed the words but couldn’t help crying. In pain, in relief, and in realizing how lost, afraid and close to death she had been. 

The ceasing of her tears coincided with a feeling of warmth and restoration, and finally she had the cognition to engage with her surroundings. She was on her back, and looking up at a wooden ceiling. When she turned her head she saw a face that caused such a swell in her heart she had to arch her spine to endure it. 

“Willow...”  
“That’s me.”  
There was a smile on her weary face Fred thought was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.  
“And the light. That was you too.”  
“An oldie but a goodie.”

The joy and relief she had felt suddenly cracked. Willow frowned at the turn in her emotions.  
“Fred?”  
She opened her mouth but could only shake her head as tears welled once more gathered on her lashes. “I...!”  
Willow placed both her hands on Fred’s arm, bulky from the sleeve of her winter jacket.  
“I didn’t find it! It was moving too fast and...I lost it!”

“Oh! Baby!” Willow smiled with relief again. She slipped forward off the coffee table she had been sitting on and knelt down next to the sofa. She leaned forward and gently kissed the tip of Fred’s nose.  
“That’s okay.”  
“No it’s not! We need it! You need it! Without it yo-”  
Willow brushed the tip of her fingers down the edge of Fred’s frantic face. “Not at the risk of losing you.”

Fred bit her lower lip hard. There were too many tears in her eyes to see clearly so she squeezed them shut.  
“Nothing is worth losing you,” Willow said.  
Fred was too emotional to accept how calm and rational Willow was being. She sat up, and a lovingly placed blanket slipped from her shoulders into her lap.  
“I should have set a better trap. It’s my fault it got away!”

“Hey. Listen to me.” Willow placed her hands firmly against Fred’s jaw and set her with a firm glare. “None of this is your fault. Not any of it. I needed to come out here. I was the one who made that deal. I was the one who got tricked.”  
“But...If I hadn’t...” Fred flapped her hands and her lip began to quiver.  
“It was all me. Okay? I’m the dummy. What am I?”  
Fred sniffed. Willow’s lips had formed a stern pout.  
“What am I?” she asked again.  
“...You’re the dummy.”  
“That’s right. I’m the dummy. You’re the smart one, and I’m the dummy. What are you?”  
“The smart one.”

Willow kissed her quivering lips. “You’re the smart one.”  
Fred lifted her thick gloves hands to clasp over Willow’s. “Smart and sexy?”  
Willow smirked. “So smart and so sexy.”  
Fred urged forward to capture Willow’s mouth with hers. Her bulky arms reached around her lover and drew her back with her as she lay back down.

When they both needed to breathe Willow broke their tender kiss and gazed about the room. “I mean...there are worse places to be trapped for another year. It’s warm, it’s peaceful.” She looked back down at Fred. “It’s secluded.” She bent down with a mischievous glean to her eyes. 

Fred frowned. “You’ve been trapped here for years already!”  
Willow paused.  
“Why aren’t you taking this seriously? I’m risking my life every year to free you! Don’t you want to be free?”  
A whisper of cold air brushed between them. Willow leaned back and perched on Fred’s thighs. Fred propped herself up on her elbows. “Willow?”

Willow pursed her lips and rolled her head dismissively. As Fred tried to sit up, Willow dismounted and stood up with her back to her.  
“Willow.”  
Willow crossed the room and stood close to the crackling fireplace.  
Fred sighed. “The world doesn’t need to be kept safe from you.”  
The other woman was a slender, majestic figure against the warm light of the peaceful flames. Fred thought that she seemed to have existed this way long before time began, and she briefly lost her breath. 

“You didn’t see.”  
“You keep saying that. It’s not fair. It’s not fair that you keep saying that to me. I’ve done things too. I’ve done things you didn’t see. I’ve been doing things before you ever saw me, and there are things I still do when you aren’t lookin’.”  
She couldn’t see her lover’s face but she could see the weariness in the way she reached for and leaned against the mantle. 

“Nothing that even compares to-”  
“Killing someone? Almost destroying the world? Psh. I mean, how close did you even get, really? It must have a been a very localized almost-end-of-the-world cause out my way we barely noticed over all the stuff with Angel and his son. To think, we needn’t ‘ave bothered.”  
Willow’s head drooped, locks of her hair forming a veil of red silk.

Fred got to her feet. “You know what I think?”  
Willow didn’t say anything, but silence was still a response.  
“I think, if y’all really intended to destroy the world, you would have started with Buffy. With Xander. If you really wanted to end the world and everyone on it, you would have started with the people who make up your world. But you didn’t. You let them be. You let them be because deep down you knew they were the only people who had a chance at stopping you. And you never wanted to destroy the world.” She had made her way around the coffee table and stood behind her lover. Now she was close enough to touch her, but stayed her hand. “You were in pain. You were in pain, and you lived your whole life on the hellmouth, and quite frankly, the fact that you’re the woman you are today shows the strength and power of your true nature.”

Willow didn’t move. So Fred did. She took one more step close and eased against her lover’s back, feeling her arms around her. Gradually, she felt the woman relax. Her hand came down from the mantle and sought out to hold Fred’s arms against her. Fred nuzzled the back of her neck. 

“You know I’m right,” she said. “Cause I’m the smart one.” She heard Willow huff.  
“Running out into a snow storm in the woods at night without so much as a flashlight was kinda dumb.”  
Fred leaned back, her mouth in the shape of offence. But she could tell Willow was smiling. She could feel it through her body. She held her close again. 

“Dumb and sexy, right?”  
“So dumb,” Willow said. “So sexy.”


End file.
